Changing Times
by fuzzy-grapes
Summary: after OD Opal realizes she's made a mistake, and sets out to fix it. Meanwhile, a relative of Opal's is the new female applicant for a job in the LEP ... ooooh!


**I wrote this ages ago, and I wasn't going to post it until I'd finished Reality TV: Lower Elements Style, but I really want some feedback on it. This is the introduction to a story I'm working on. Don't expect updates any time soon – I've written this and the first chapter and the basic outline and I want to write the whole thing before posting it up – then I can update the whole time! Please read and review! Thanks!**

Opal Koboi was annoyed. No, more than that. She was angry. But even that was an understatement.

She should have been happy. This time last year her life was perfect. Plan to kill all enemies: check. Way to frame Holly Short for her crimes: check. Fairy people condemmed: check. Rule over world: … Well, there lay the problem.

Maybe this dream to rule over the world was a bit melodramatic. But Opal never could resist melodrama.

It didn't matter anyway. Opal's plan had been fooled by none other than the very people she was trying to get rid of. It had all started to go wrong when they stole her chocolate truffles… But that wouldn't have happened if her assistants hadn't been so stupid.

Opal clenched her thin fingers. Those IDIOTS! So typical they would get off serving a 150 year prison sentence in a Haven correctional facility, leaving Opal to rot it out in Howler's Peak. A goblin prison.

Opal had been given a thousand years of jail time. No matter. The People had a life expectancy of 2000-2500 years. But Opal was human now, left to succumb to human diseases. Like the lifespan of 75-100 years. Opal couldn't die in prison!

But it seemed there was no other choice.

When she had undergone the transformation into a human, Opal had known she would have a limited lifespan. She'd just imagined that she wouldn't mind. After all, one does tire of spending their life living it up as ruler of the earth, sipping cocktails and eating chocolate truffles while slaves carried out various tasks for her. Such as killing the fairy People. But those dreams were beyond her now.

Opal needed to get out of prison. But the problem with being in a goblin prison was that the occupants were goblins. And goblins weren't exactly the Einsteins of the fairy world … in fact, quite the opposite. No accomplices. No way out. So, Opal did what any other doomed genius would do.

She plotted.

Day and night, the pixie worked on plans. She thought up dozens of schemes, ranging from far-fetched to basic. But then she realized, even if she did escape, she would still be human, hindered by the many limitations of man-kind.

And she came to realize that turning human had been the biggest mistake of her life.

**&&HHHH&&**

The advantage of having a life sentence was that you were allowed access to the prison library. Possibly Foaly's little joke – give goblins a chance to raise their intelligence by an IQ point or two before their life is over. Die informed. Or it could be so bored goblins would concentrate on burning the books that confused them, as opposed to burning down the prison. Either way, Opal wasn't laughing.

Opal had what the LEP recognized as a life sentence, therefore was able to use the library. She holed herself up with thick books on quantum physics, time and space continuums, and even a biography of Albert Einstein. But Foaly still insisted that the Mud Man had copied his theory. And his fashion sense.

Opal read and read. Then she plotted.

Until, finally, she found a way out.

**&&HHHH&&**

That had been six months ago. Now Opal emerged from the library triumphantly clutching the fruit of her efforts, a small device. The device was flat, flat enough to conceal beneath her clothes without detection. She stepped through the metal detector, flashing a metal pen at the guard to show that that was what had set it off. The guard had just come back from a huge lunch and was about to nod off into oblivion. He let her pass.

'Fool,' Opal thought. She ran the rest of the way to her cell. Once the cell had locked her in, she unpacked the device, not caring at the cameras pointing at her.

In a few seconds this would not be happening, so why worry about it now?

She had a few thoughts about performing a song to Foaly, who would surely be checking up on her, but decided against it. It wasn't that she didn't have the time – she had all the time in the world. It was just that she wanted to get this over with quickly.

"And how much I look forward to getting my magic back!" She exclaimed, as she programmed some carefully calculated co-ordinates into the device.

Finally it was ready. Opal felt the need to say something dramatic. She couldn't let this feat of intelligence go un-noticed. But it would.

"Who was smarter in the end, Foaly? All those science medals, all the times you have locked me up, but I still triumph!" She said to the security camera, smiling as she imagined Foaly's face. He would perhaps think her delirious, or mentally insane, but she knew she was neither of these things. She smiled at her device, before pressing the big button on the front of it.

And, in an instant, everything changed.


End file.
